By Alexander Bernhardt Bloom | alex@queensledger.com

 

The Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria, on a scorching midweek afternoon in the mid-summer, has a great deal to offer the casual visitor seeking a brief respite from the afflictions beyond its gates.

Mothers settle into benches there and let their children run in the shaded underbelly of the garden’s cluster of trees. Construction workers take their midday meal. Older men in weathered baseball caps cast fishing lines into the bend of the northern leg of the East River that the garden sits up against.

Others, perhaps less casually, on a scorching midweek afternoon recently, wandered among the elements in the sculpture exposition on view there this summer, engaged in reflection of the sort to recall the memory of the great, Greek thinker for whom the park takes its name.

Suchitra Mattai’s We are nomads, we are dreamers, installed there until August 25th, gives one a lot to think about.

It all begins rather playfully, some of the artworks engaged in a game of hide and seek with a visitor, dangling from trees like beehives in unexpected corners of the garden. The tone shifts in Becoming, whose elements are arranged in a circular constellation that sweeps across the park’s northern lawn.

Described in an explanatory panel at the park’s entrance as “a monument to the journey of becoming,” what the sculptures literally are, are sedan-sized constructions of net and metal in the form of a woman’s wedge sandal. From particular angles they resemble Claude Monet’s famed haystacks: colorful, squat in whimsy, peaceful and prominent at once.

The base of each of the six pieces is woven with saris, many hundreds of them. The sari is not, of course, a conventional artists’ material but a traditional mode of dress for women from India whose descendants, including Mattai, carried the garments with them as diaspora brought them to new and unfamiliar corners of the world. Mattai assembled a collection of them large enough to weave into the tapestries that wrap the bottom of each sculpture, about 40 feet long a-piece, thereby constructing a new story of the thousands of distinct stories each of the saris carried with it before.

The result is arresting; to look is to become lost. The colors and textures are so varied, and the conditions they are in too, subject to the wear and tear of weather and other acts of god out in the open air where they have been presented. How very many roads must each have traveled before its arrival to here and now.

In stark contrast are the sleek, reflective metal faces that seal each piece on the top. On this scorching midweek afternoon the sunlight they returned to the visitors who got close enough blinded and burned; a midday meal of fried eggs might have been realized on their surface.

And while the sari-woven tapestries beneath them remain fixed in their arrangement and static in their appearance, the image one sees on the surface up top is changing constantly. Drifting clouds, passing avians, the visitors themselves, all become a part of the artist’s installation in a breath, Mattai insisting that the future, even with so much recorded behind it, remains ours to make.

Last week a major political party in our country nominated, for the first time, a woman who counts South Asian among the lines of descent that make up her identity. Mattai’s sculptures remind us that her’s is an example of a characteristically-American story; and also, that none of us are simply the sum of our demographic parts; and also, that in our achievements we stand on the shoulders of many, many others who came before.

A casual visitor to the Socrates Sculpture Park this summer should find respite there and much more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Alexander Bernhardt Bloom | alex@queensledger.com

 

At the time of this column’s presentation to press the Olympic games in Paris had been on less than a week but many a neck had been hung, yet, with heavy metal. 

The Republic of Moldova, for example, was awarded two, bronze in color and merit, for its athletes’ outstanding performance in competitive Judo. Sweden’s amounted to three, two thirds of which celebrated its teammates’ success in Target Shooting and Womens’ Cross-Country Mountain Biking.

China and Japan led all of the rest in golds at six apiece, but it was our own Team USA, ever the outsized presence, with the most medals overall at twenty. That’s nothing to shake a baguette at.

All twenty of them will return with hometown heroes to hometowns someplace, but a few merit special recognition here for their winners’ proximity to our own metropolitan area.

Lauren Scruggs, Queens native, Harvard scholar, and Fencing phenom, receives first mention. On her way to the championship match Scruggs faced Italy’s Arianna Errigo, ranked number one in their Foil field worldwide. In a heated contest the two fencers did frequently remove their flag-stamped protective masks to reveal faces marked with anguish and determination. Tied at fourteen strikes each the two advanced along the jousting strip toward one another and leapt at the same moment, each making contact on the torso of her opponent. 

Off came the masks, Errigo screaming into the air in satisfaction, for she was sure she’d won it. But the judges went to review and in the moments in between as they deliberated the Queens came out in Scruggs, composed but indignant, her gesturing with her arms in a language we in the boroughs understand well: ball don’t lie. The judges ultimately agreed.

On went Scruggs, and she’d face USA teammate Lee Keifer in a match for the gold less volatile and more decisive, Scruggs defeated 15-6, and followed by the two embracing and hoisting American flags side-by-side with their coaches on hand. We’ve surely not seen the last of the foil from Ozone Park.

Olympic Swimmer Nic Fink is from Morristown, New Jersey. Close enough. 

Like Scruggs, Fink made his debut on the Olympic stage this week, and his glory would arrive in the Men’s 100-Meter Breaststroke event. All races in the Olympic pool are nail biters, but if you didn’t catch Fink’s come-from-behind dazzler in this one please request a replay from your search browser. 

The burden of high expectations, in this case, rested mostly on the enormous shoulders of China’s Qin Haiyang and Briton Adam Peaty, and they led the race for most of the way. But, executing the turn and slithering into the return length it was Italian hotrod Nicolo Martinenghi leading them thereafter, and Fink was a good extended arm’s length behind him and the rest. 

Breaststroke swimmers have the appearance of the devout in enthusiastic prayer, rising and bowing in supplication then repeating again, an image that will leave you visually awestruck. Fink may have been praying in earnest, because, in an impossible last push to meet the wall, his fingers arrived at the precise moment as did Peaty’s, and the two were awarded matching silver medals.

Fink’s wife Melanie, a competitive swimmer and former Olympian herself, was watching at home, carrying the couple’s first child. She’d asked him to remind her to breathe as he took to the pool.

“I’m very speechless right now,” he explained in an interview afterward. Well, us too.

Kassidy Cook is not from anywhere near the tri-state area in Plantation, Florida, outside of Fort Lauderdale. But many New Yorkers vacation and retire there, and those who watched her performance in the Women’s Synchronized Springboard finals last week would unquestionably offer the diver a key to our city.

In this event, team members climb to the top of a diving platform which extends two planks in parallel out over the pool below. Just over ten feet to fall, the thrill is not in the speed or distance so much as the beautiful connectedness and precise grace exhibited by the divers who do it well.

Cook and her diving partner Sarah Bacon do it better than that. In the first round they approached the edge of the springboard backwards, securing their toes in a stoic moment before Cook’s firm countoff began their flexing of the ground beneath, finally catapulting the two divers up. They hinged their bodies at the highest moment before plunging head over heels to be swallowed gently by the deep end.

They were only getting started, the three dives to follow seeing them approach head on, in some cases dancing toward the bouncing edge before flying off it, diving inward and outward both, adding pirouettes to the flips which became hard to count in number before the duo finally met, and always with a slicing immediacy, with the chlorinated depths beneath.

They finally finished a near second to the pair of divers from China, a testament to the level of competition that rises to the 3-meter altitude, but Cook and Bacon will carry home heavy metal as hometown heroes, nevermind the color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By MOHAMED FARGHALY | mfarghaly@queensledger.com

St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children has launched a new Simulation Lab to provide tailored training for staff and caregivers on pediatric life safety and clinical care skills, ensuring a safe transition for medically fragile children from hospital to home. Photo courtesy of St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children

St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children recently celebrated the ribbon cutting for its new Simulation Lab, an innovative facility designed to provide tailored training on pediatric-focused life safety techniques and clinical care skills. The lab aims to prepare parents and caregivers to care for their medically fragile children at home, ensuring a safe discharge from the hospital.

St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children has been the primary provider of long-term and rehabilitative care for New York’s most critically ill and injured children since the 1870s. St. Mary’s is one of a handful of organizations nationwide dedicated to providing intensive rehabilitation, specialized care, and education to children with special needs and life-limiting conditions.

The Simulation Lab offers a controlled environment where staff and caregivers can practice handling real-world medical scenarios without the risks associated with practicing on patients. This new program significantly enhances St. Mary’s capabilities to train parents, allowing them to practice skills repeatedly without compromising their child’s safety.

The lab, featuring high-fidelity simulators and extensive medical equipment, enables practice in a risk-free environment, enhancing preparedness and confidence for both parents and healthcare professionals. Photo courtesy of St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children

The lab enables parents to familiarize themselves with the equipment their child uses daily, with training customized to each child’s unique needs. Parents are welcome to return periodically to refresh their skills and stay updated on best practices.

“At St. Mary’s we are always looking for new innovative technologies to help us support our parents and staff in providing the best possible care to our unique patients, “ Dr. Edwin Simpser, President and CEO of St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children said. “This Simulation Lab will bring hope and healing to our families by teaching them about patient care in a low-risk environment, so that they will eventually be able to care for their medically fragile child independently at home. It’s really a dream come true for many of our parents!“

The lab features five patient beds that simulate various medical situations, covering different genders, medical complexities, and patient ages. It includes all necessary medical equipment to help users build clinical confidence and empower caregivers and staff to learn about patient care without distractions.

Bency Massinello, VP of Inpatient Nursing at St. Mary’s, emphasized the significance of the lab.

“Our role is to make sure that our children are able to get trained, families are able to get trained, and children are stabilized enough to be integrated back into the community,” she said. “The simulation lab was a vision we had for many years… We partnered with Lara Simulation Center to set up a program with high-fidelity simulators that simulate real-life scenarios as closely as possible.”

The Simulation Lab has been in development since 2018, with full approval and funding secured by 2021. Despite challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues, the lab was completed this year in partnership with Laerdal Medical, a company specializing in simulation training.

“Our goal is to ensure that staff and caregivers can practice and get competent in a safe environment without fear of harming a child,” Massinello said. “Nursing staff or any clinician typically spend three to four years in university learning how to perform their tasks. Our goal with this lab is to ensure guardians and parents, who may only have a crash course, are equally prepared.”

St. Mary’s plans to expand the lab’s use beyond hospital staff and parents, offering training opportunities to the broader community and enhancing overall healthcare education.

“The board of directors are fully invested and engaged… The interest is definitely there, and we’re excited to keep expanding and working on it,” Massinello said. “Simulation has become a crucial part of professional development, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. It allows us to manage training within our St. Mary’s community and extend support beyond home care services and case management.”